On the Day of Christmas
by Yemi Hikari
Summary: Mr. and Mrs. Read's delightful Christmas time, spending it watching out for their kids... and it goes in the pattern of 'Twelve Days of Christmas'.
1. Twelve Drummers Drumming

_Disclaimer – I do not own Arthur._

**

* * *

**

Twelve Drummers Drumming

The Read family was going to Arthur's band concert for Christmas and were quite happy to be going, that is for one Dora Winifred who would much rather have done something else. She sat in her car seat moping about having to go. "I bet they won't have the Mary Moo Cow song or the Crazy Bus song at the concert."

"That's because it is a Christmas concert D.W," her father spoke up.

"Well, they do have Christmas versions of the songs… they could play that, but when I suggested that to Arthur, he said that wouldn't work," the little girl stated.

"Well, that is because this is for the whole family, not just adults and not just little children," her mother smiled. "They'll have Rudolf the Reindeer."

"Rudolf the Reindeer is not the same thing as Mary Moo cow. A bunch of cows should pull Santa's sleigh… that or a bunch of Unicorns." Her comment made it so that both of her parents gave each other looks.

"It won't be boring," was the reply that came.

"I bet it will be…" D.W. muttered. The car pulled into the parking lot and she took her father's hand while her mother carried her baby sister. They took seats near the front row. The concert struck up and began to play with great relish. Perhaps it was too much relish, because one of Binky Barnes drumsticks snapped and went and hit Principle Haney's head.

"One…" counted D.W. as Binky pulled out another drumstick. She continued to count as number two hit Mr. Ratburn, number three hit off to the far left of the stage, number's four and five went flying into the skylight, six went and landed in the punch bowl for after the concert, seven, eight and nine just broke and fell to the ground, ten went flying into Buster's tuba and made it so he had to stop playing, eleven went flying into the piano, making it so that an odd sound came from it and number twelve went and hit Mr. Haney again, causing Binky to have one drumstick left.

"You do know," Muffy muttered to the boy, "That having the number thirteen is extremely bad luck?"

"I guess that wasn't as boring as I thought," D.W. laughed as the concert was paused so the music teacher could go and get new sticks for Binky and taped ones at that.

_

* * *

_

Author's note – This is what I call Neo-so-fic, or Neosofic, which stands for new (neo) songfic. Basically, the concept is this… if a song that is in not in public domain really does inspire you, the concept is to name the story after the song only if it is a one shot, or to name the chapters after the lines. Inspired by an actual published work that named it's chapters after Elvis songs… 'Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit'. I know that possibly others have come up and done this idea before, but I felt it deserved a name for itself. Don't ask… hopefully I'll finish all the chapters for this before to long.


	2. Eleven Pipers Piping

**Eleven Pipers Piping**

When Mrs. Read went to pick up D.W. at the end of Preschool for the winter school break, she found a very upset preschool teacher and she had to wonder why the teacher was so upset. The teacher stammered out what had happened at school that day. "The Tibble's thought it would be a good idea to have mice as a class pet and brought it for a Christmas present for the class."

"How did they get a hold of those mice," Mrs. Read asked.

"Well, they apparently caught them at their house and their Grandmother said that the mice couldn't stay in the house, so they ended up taking them to here for pets… not to mention taking them out of their cages…"

"Oh dear…"

"We found one in Emily's backpack and the poor girl was crying hysterically… we had to call her nanny to take her home. I was so glad that the nanny wrote it off as Tibble Trouble and not something to cause a major fuss over,"

"I should imagine… considering the way Emily's parents are…"

"The second one we found in the snacks for school, so we couldn't eat them. We then found five in the toy box bringing the count to seven. We then found two in the girl's bathroom and one in the boys… however; we're still missing one…"

"There were eleven?" D.W.'s mother asked.

"Oh, yes… what happened to the…" the teacher was interrupted by D.W. holding up something.

"Mom… can I keep it?" the little girl had a smile on her face.

"Oh for Pete's sake D.W., the answer is no…"

"But he's cute… and I was the Pied Piper and he came to me…" D.W. commented.

"Sorry dear… no mice for Christmas…"

D.W. sighed. "But Arthur gets a pet. She let go of the mouse though and it scurried away.


	3. Ten Lords a Leaping

**Ten Lords a Leaping**

Of course, if one had to go to Arthur's Christmas thing, then they had to go to D.W.'s too. D.W.'s gymnastic class was showing off what they had learned during the semester and were quite excited about doing it, including the Tibble twins. Arthur had no problem going to the thing at all, unlike D.W. had been to his.

D.W. though was a whole lot more nervous about this then he was, but then this was her first live performance doing something she really liked doing and was actually sticking too… though she had wanted to switch a few times; her mother had made it clear that there would be no more switching of activities.

Emily, D.W.'s friend, had gone and gotten a brand new gymnastics outfit for the special occasion, making D.W. a little jealous, until the teacher said that the girls would all be wearing red and the boys green… plus the Tibble scarves to tell the Tibble's apart of course. D.W. was still freaking out even though she had gotten her new ensemble and Emily had to go pick yet another one.

Things were defiantly though not going as they had been planned. Mr. Read actually overheard the Tibble Twins speaking with Buster, Arthur's friend over the fence. They had some how convinced the boy that they were going to be doing some amazing stunts, which the Tibble Twins probably believed they were, but Buster ended up believing and wanting to come too.

The next thing they knew was that the Tibble Twins hadn't shown up in their bandanas. Instead, they were wearing red and green because that was what made them stand out more and their Grandmother didn't feel that the bandanas went with the event at all, much to the boys' disappointment.

On top of that, Tommy was teasing Timmy about being a girl. If one can guess, it was Timmy that was in red while Tommy was in green. Timmy was actually close to tears for once and his Grandmother was trying to consol him along with the teacher in the fact that it was alright, but Timmy really didn't think it was.

That was until Emily came in wearing a green outfit. The teacher ended up slapping her forehead. She asked Emily why she ever thought it was alright to wear green. Emily first pointed to the Tibble Twins, to which the teacher commented that they had an excuse… what was hers. Emily then said that her mother said that red clashed with her completion.

It then turned out that Emily's parents had chosen not to show up, but that was quite expected. But everyone knew that she had been hoping that they would and could see it in her eyes that she was upset. But Emily was used to them not really showing up and just brushed it off… at least her nanny was here and her nanny cared.

There were then a lot of bumps and bruises as the kids fumbled their way through the whole mess of getting through their routines, but they were still in pre-school and doing quite well at what they were doing. Their parents all clapped… oh, and Emily's nanny too, so that little bit wasn't a big deal.

However, Buster was scowling because he had been expecting some very great stunts. To D.W. and Arthur's embarrassment, he let the Tibble Twins know what he thought of their lies. To which Tommy poked him in the chest and commented on the fact that their stunts were amazing.

Nothing else could go wrong, except that Tommy and Timmy had decided to show off their new trick that they had designed themselves. So, back to back they did a cartwheel… right into Buster and the fruit punch bowl… it was quite possible they had done this on purpose, or so Buster commented on the way home.

Meanwhile, D.W. was counting on her fingers and Arthur asked what she was counting, "My nervousness, Emily getting a new gymnastics ensemble, Buster thinking what the Tibble's said was what he thought they said, the Tibbles showing up in red _and _green, Tommy nearly making Timmy cry, Emily showing up in green, her parents not coming, falling down a few times, Buster saying dumb things and then the punch bowl…"

"In other words even with those things you had fun," Arthur nodded in understanding. "That's what I found out… it's not always about the performance, but about enjoying yourself and having confidence."

"And Buster ending up in the punch bowl," D.W. laughed.

"Ha ha… it wasn't that funny… though it was delicious!" which brought laughter from everyone.


	4. Nine Ladies Dancing

**Nine Ladies Dancing**

Mrs. Read had received tickets to the Nutcracker for some good work she had done for one of her customers… nine to be exact, so she had to think of who to take. She would be one of the people in the group, that was a definite, and D.W. would love to go to it as she had been talking about it since she had seen a poster.

She then asked D.W. who, if she were to bring anyone to the ballet, who they would be. The girl's eyes went wide with delight finding out that they were actually going. She frowned though. "Isn't daddy going?"

"Your father has to many Christmas catering jobs…" Mrs. Read sighed.

"Oh… well, Emily would love to come to this, as would. So would Vacita… she would like to go… and the Tibble twins,"

"The Tibble twins… they would like this?" Mrs. Read asked skeptically.

"Well, yeah… they wanted to see the sword fighting," D.W. pointed out, which was no surprise at all. Mrs. Read thought carefully then came to a conclusion. If she was going to bring five kids and herself, that left three tickets, she would need help with the younger ones; Arthur would have to go because he could handle the Tibbles.

But then who to look after the girls. Francine was out of the question, as she was more into sports, and Muffy… she did not want to put Muffy and Emily together… that would be possibly not a good thing to do. She then settled on Su Ellen and Fern as the best candidates to go.

Arthur was none to pleased at being selected as one of the nine to go to the play. He followed after them with the Tibble Twins yakking about how the hoped to see someone die on the stage. He wasn't happy about this one bit, expesully when the twins asked where their hotdogs and popcorn were.

The ballet started and instantly the younger girls began asking questions about it, as it was silent. Mrs. Read had expected that the girls would be explaining it, but the Tibble twins were actually explaining it with great gusto. So much so that one would have expected the people around them to get disgusted, but they actually were smiling at the twins.

They also had no problem when the twins suddenly roared with delight when the rat king was killed. Arthur just shrunk down in his seat, wondering how he was stuck with the two in the first place. Afterwards, she asked the kids if they liked it.

"It was boring," Arthur commented.

"It was a classic… like seeing a book put into action," Fern sighed.

"Except that there were no words," D.W. muttered.

"It was a piece of culture… my mother was happy you brought me," came Emily's comment.

"I felt it was an awesome cultural experience… I've seen the play done in Russian costumes; Japanese… all sorts, but never this way… the normal way,"

"I liked the Tibble Twins explanations!" to which the twins smiled.


End file.
